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Travelling to Paris as part of a European "daredevil tour," obnoxious American tourists Andy (Tom Everett Scott), Brad (Vince Vieluf), and Chris (Phil Buckman) look to enjoy the city's cultural landmarks, heading to the Eiffel Tower with a bungee cord after the sun goes down. However, before they can perform their planned jump, they witness Serafine (Julie Delpy) preparing to commit suicide by leaping off the tower. Andy intervenes and saves her, but Serafine disappears into the night, unwilling to thank the boys for their efforts. Instantly smitten, Andy tracks down Serafine and tries to win her affection, unwilling to take "no" for an answer. Andy's relentless pursuit of Serafine leads to the trio discovering a secret underground society of werewolves who use a serum to transform themselves at any time, regardless of the moon.
Although John Landis initially began developing an organic sequel with returning characters in the early 1990s, the studio rejected the idea, prompting the director to quit the project. After going through several screenwriters, the film eventually headed towards production with a script by Tim Burns and Tom Stern, who previously worked on the 1993 comedy film Freaked and the MTV sketch comedy show The Idiot Box. Even after enduring many rewrites, both credited (director Anthony Waller) and uncredited (Larry Brothers, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade), the resultant film is astonishingly slipshod, with cheap comedy and uninteresting characters spoiling the story's promising ideas. The film's early stages feel like a typical '90s teen comedy, as one could easily imagine the central trio appearing in an American Pie film, and the gags (including Andy chewing a condom) are dishearteningly low-brow and ineffective. Waller furthers the '90s atmosphere by filling the movie with era-specific music, including songs by Caroline's Spine, Fastball and Smash Mouth.
Waller made his directorial debut with the well-received horror film Mute Witness in 1995, but An American Werewolf in Paris comes up astonishingly short in terms of scares and atmosphere. Unfortunately, there is no getting past the woeful digital effects. An American Werewolf in London relied on Rick Baker's exceptional make-up effects and prosthetics, while John Landis used creative lighting and editing to create the horror. Although the early stages of An American Werewolf in Paris show promise by using a less-is-more approach, including an unnerving opening attack sequence that editor Peter R. Adam intercuts with an orchestra, all suspense and horror disappear when Waller brings the digitally-created creatures to the foreground. Additionally, werewolf point-of-view shots contribute to the suspense in the picture's early stages, but the shots soon become overused. The animatronic werewolves and practical effects are solid, but the computer-generated werewolves never look remotely convincing even for a single frame, as the special effects are unbelievably terrible and phoney even by '90s standards (The Lost World: Jurassic Park was released in the same year). Plus, the compositing is equally unconvincing, with bungee jumps off the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty looking rough and unfinished. The reported $25 million budget is genuinely baffling, as the flick looks closer to a straight-to-video cheapie or a bad TV movie than a glorious theatrical feature. Indeed, there is no visual flair.
Fresh from the Tom Hanks-directed musical hit That Thing You Do!, Tom Everett Scott is entirely bereft of charm here, coming across as a bland and uninteresting leading man. Likewise, his co-stars - Vince Vieluf and Phil Buckman - fail to make much of an impression, coming across as generic and unlikeable. However, it's hard to imagine any actors executing some of this material gracefully, with the script including bizarre scenes of Andy seeing visions of deceased people. Meanwhile, acclaimed French actress Julie Delpy (Before Sunrise) only agreed to play Serafine for the money, and she confidently out-acts all of the other performers. Treating the material with utmost sincerity, Delpy is magnetic, spirited and innately human, creating a character that is easy to like and latch onto, which makes her co-stars look even worse.
There are minor highlights throughout An American Werewolf in Paris, particularly with the grisly, R-rated attack scenes that can be enjoyed as campy, mindless entertainment (the climactic train attack is entertaining enough). However, the film fails to gel as a whole, with Waller never coming close to matching the brilliance of Landis's landmark original film. An American Werewolf in Paris fails as both a comedy and a horror film since it's not scary or funny, which is incredibly disheartening considering the potential for a sequel to An American Werewolf in London.
3.9/10
